Configuration

Configuration options

You have two basic options to configure the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramGenerator for diagram generation:

construct a PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfig object on your own and pass it into the constructor of the generator (not recommended)
use the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder to build the configuration object and pass it into the constructor of the generator (recommended)

The first approach to fill all configuration data in an object of type PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfig and pass it into the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramGenerator constructor is supported but should not be used, as it is not so readable and more errorprone than the third option via the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder class and therefore this option is the recommended one.

Builder customization

If you construct a PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder - as recommended - , you need to pass to mandatory parameters to it:

the name of the class where the sequence starts
the name of the method where the sequence starts
(this name needs to be unique or a random method with the same name is chosen)

If you have done this, you can add the following list of parameters via builder methods:

class blacklist regular expression
to filter out the classes being part of the diagram
classloader
to specify the classloader to search for the classes
hide method name
to hide the names of the called methods in the diagram
hide super class
to show the method call as part of the child class instead of the super class
ignore JPA entities
to remove all calls to a JPA entity from the sequence flow
ignore standard classes
to remove all calls to a standard classes (every package starting with java.*) from the diagram
method blacklist regular expression
to filter out calls to methods in the sequence flow
show return types
to show the type of the return types in the diagram
use short class names
to use only the class name itself without the package name

After you configured everything you can construct the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfig object via the build() method and pass this configuration as parameter to the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramGenerator and create the diagram text.

Builder usage example

Here is a simple example for the usage of the PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder with the two mandatory parameters (startClass, startMethod) retrieved from the JUnit tests:

// ARRANGE
PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder builder = new PlantUMLSequenceDiagramConfigBuilder(CallerA.class.getName(), (1)
		"callSomething"); (2)
PlantUMLSequenceDiagramGenerator generator = new PlantUMLSequenceDiagramGenerator(builder.build()); (3)
String expectedDiagramText = IOUtils.toString(Objects.requireNonNull(classLoader.getResource("sequence/0001_basic_caller_test.txt")),
		StandardCharsets.UTF_8);

// ACT
String generatedDiagram = generator.generateDiagramText(); (4)

// ASSERT
assertAll(() -> assertNotNull(generatedDiagram), () -> assertEquals(expectedDiagramText.replaceAll("\\s+", ""),
		generatedDiagram.replaceAll("\\s+", "")));

1	add start class as string
2	add start method as string
3	create generator object with config from builder
4	generate diagram text

the result of this generation is

@startuml
participant CallerA
participant CallerB

activate CallerA
	CallerA -> CallerB : callSomething
	activate CallerB
		CallerB -> CallerB : privateMethodCall
		activate CallerB
			CallerB --> CallerB
		deactivate CallerB
		CallerB -> CallerB : protectedMethodCall
		activate CallerB
			CallerB --> CallerB
		deactivate CallerB
		CallerB --> CallerA
	deactivate CallerB
	CallerA -> CallerB : callSomethingElse
	activate CallerB
		CallerB --> CallerA
	deactivate CallerB
deactivate CallerA
@enduml

which is rendered in PlantUML this way: